Voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s push to reopen schools without ensuring it can be done safely. As Trump downplays the risk and refuses to take necessary precautions, coronavirus cases are on the rise among children, and teachers fear for their lives.

By more than a two-to-one margin, voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of reopening schools. 

Quinnipiac University: “Voters say more than 2 to 1, 61 – 29 percent, that they disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the re-opening of schools.”

Politico/Morning Consult: “A decisive 65 percent of voters rejected President Donald Trump’s threat to cut federal funding for schools that don’t reopen, agreeing instead that schools need resources for continued virtual learning or other types of instruction.”

Trump predicted the virus would not impact kids and opposed school safety measures, in part because they wouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing.

TRUMP: “We have learned one thing very strongly. Young people are in great shape when it comes to the coronavirus or whatever you want to call it. Young people are very, very, very much in good shape. And without question, they should open their schools.”

TRUMP: “We do want to get our schools open. There’s virtually no impact on children.”

TRUMP: “It doesn’t attack the young.”

TRUMP: “No, but some guidelines were extremely tough. They wanted plastic in between every desk. They wanted, you know, plexiglass, which I know, being a builder, I said, ‘That’s gonna cost a fortune.’ And it’s not a very nice setting. But they had plexiglass in between desks. Tremendously, I think it’s a — I just don’t think it’s acceptable. I don’t even know if it’s doable if you look at it times millions and millions of students.”

Coronavirus infections are on the rise in children and teens as the Trump administration tries to downplay the risk of schools reopening.

HuffPost: “Nearly One-Third Of Florida Children Tested For COVID-19 Test Positive”

Bloomberg: “As the school year draws near, children and teens represent a ballooning percentage of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. as the youngest Americans increasingly venture outside their homes and are able to get tested. While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long maintained on its website that those younger than 18 make up only 2% of cases, state data paints a much less rosy picture. California and Mississippi, for instance, are recording rates nearing 10% of overall cases.”

Teachers fear for their lives and worry children would be put at risk by reopening schools without ensuring it could be done safely.

CNN: “Teachers are so worried about returning to school that they’re preparing wills”

California teacher: “How horrible is it that one of the things on the list to do is to have a plan for students and teachers dying?”

Special education teacher: “I would never have thought, when I became a teacher. I would need to get a will in place in order to go back to work.”

Texas teacher: “I feel very uneasy returning to face-to-face instruction because I am putting my children at risk of contracting COVID-19.”